During the last week, the potato plants have shot up and are about a foot tall.
Is it too late to bury them up to their necks?
Tue Jun 12, 2012 2:04 pm
Tue Jun 12, 2012 2:49 pm
Wed Jun 13, 2012 1:09 am
Wed Jun 13, 2012 3:24 am
Wed Jun 13, 2012 3:30 am
Wed Jun 13, 2012 3:44 am
rainbowgardener wrote:I can't really argue with James, because he has grown WAY more potatoes than I have. But most other sources that you read talk about keeping on hilling up potatoes for awhile. And for me personally, I think it is important to keep burying them, because I am growing mine in containers, so they don't have any room to spread out horizontally, so I have to give them some vertical space.
and I always understood the reason for the hilling is this:
The new potatoes grow in the space between the seed potato you planted and the ground, so there needs to be some space there.
Wed Jun 13, 2012 4:20 am
Wed Jun 13, 2012 3:45 pm
Wed Jun 13, 2012 4:16 pm
luvthesnapper wrote:I hear you need an indeterminate variety of potato, as well. Something that will keep producing, as you keep hilling. I forget where I read that. I'm sure someone here knows more about it, as this year was my first year growing potatoes.
Wed Jun 13, 2012 6:57 pm
I understood that the more or higher you build the potato box up, the more potatoes that will grow. Apparently as the main stalk is buried, it sends out roots / shoots and keeps growing spuds all the way up.
Wed Jun 13, 2012 7:04 pm
Thu Jun 14, 2012 3:07 am
jal_ut wrote:I understood that the more or higher you build the potato box up, the more potatoes that will grow. Apparently as the main stalk is buried, it sends out roots / shoots and keeps growing spuds all the way up.
OK. Has anyone on this forum ever done that to see that it actually works? I am skeptical.
Even if it does, the fact remains that by burying leaves you lose the production of food that they would have produced. Food that goes into the tubers. The question comes up, whether you would get more weight even if you got more tubers. By burying the leaves you put the plant under stress. Now it has to devote energy into producing more leaves before it can produce excess to put in the tubers.
Run the experiment if you wish, but as for me hilling spuds three inches works very well.
Thu Jun 14, 2012 5:55 am
Thu Jun 14, 2012 10:45 am
Thu Jun 14, 2012 1:14 pm